Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 2257 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Michelle Thomson
I still do not understand why the assessments were not done at the time.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, minister. Thank you for attending the meeting this morning.
I want to ask about ScotWind. In her original statement, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government said that the intention was to draw down £460 million from ScotWind. That came under some criticism by many people, not least of all me. However, as the convener has already pointed out, luckily, it now looks as though matters have changed, due to your excellent internal planning assumption. More important, we will not have a final update until the spring budget revision. What assessment have you made of the behavioural impacts on investment as a result of continued uncertainty about whether the ScotWind money will be used for revenue spending or to genuinely support future growth?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Michelle Thomson
I am looking at the general principle, because the information that we have is quite opaque, because we have moneys coming into certain areas. I am looking at the general principle, as that appears to be what has happened.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Michelle Thomson
That was my working assumption, so I was surprised to see the transfer from net zero and energy to enterprise, trade and investment. It is good that that money is going to offshore energy, because that adds investment, but, given that both growing the economy and tackling the climate emergency are Scottish Government priorities, what was the thinking behind swapping the money from one priority area to another? There were net funding changes of £19.6 million from net zero and energy to enterprise.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Michelle Thomson
We are all grateful for the changes that have been made thus far, at the behest of the committee, to provide greater transparency. Regarding your role and the good work that, I understand, you are doing to seek to make savings from a public administration point of view, have you had any thoughts about how that can be transparently demonstrated? I know that that does not relate to our discussion today, but it would relate to future budgets.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Michelle Thomson
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My connection dropped, but I would have voted yes.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Michelle Thomson
Does Mr Hoy agree that the addition of scrutiny of public administration to the finance brief for the first time in this place has been very worth while and that, arguably, that has been evidenced by the report that is before us?
Meeting of the Parliament
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Michelle Thomson
Each year, as we approach the budget, the FPAC—that is what I will shorten it to—hears the same refrain, which is broadly summarised as, “We’re great and we deserve more money.” Each successive group of witnesses says the same, and each successive group does not necessarily consider the bigger picture. The strategic landscape—I use that term deliberately to ensure that we in this Parliament take a long-range view in relation to commissioners—seems to have been going the same way. I can imagine a multitude of areas in which, if we consulted people and asked them whether they would like a commissioner to deal with their area of interest, they would say that they would like one.
However, as an existing postholder said:
“As commissioners, we see regular frequent flyers ... looking for an angle in on their particular issue, and sometimes the more angles you have, the more risk there is and the more inefficiency there is in a system.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 30 April 2024; c 16-17.]
I hope, and suspect we all agree, that public service reform is long overdue; that efficiency, effectiveness and coherence must be at the heart of our public spend; and that the processes in this place are still evolving.
I was pleasantly surprised, on receiving the usual briefings ahead of the debate, to find that they, too, were supportive of the position adopted by our committee. That provides a welcoming backdrop to today’s debate.
I plan to pull out a few points to add to the contributions from members so far, which I have found heartening. First, it is worth reiterating the strong cross-party agreement in committee for a moratorium on the creation of any new commissioners. We should bear it in mind that the Finance and Public Administration Committee is, of course, a cross-party committee, as is standard, and we have robust exchanges on a regular basis. The strength of feeling within the committee was heartening.
Secondly, on democratic accountability, of the various types of commissioners that are listed—investigatory, regulatory, complaints handling, specialist oversight and advocacy—we know that the new ones that are being proposed are mostly advocates. I agree with that, but what are we here to do, as MSPs, if not to advocate? That point was succinctly made by Jackson Carlaw:
“When it comes to advocacy, that is what MSPs were elected to do.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 28 May 2024; c 2.]
My third point concerns parliamentary accountability. Professor Alan Page noted that the bodies concerned
“are not really accountable to anybody”.
That is a strong view, but I would certainly agree that their accountability is uncertain. On scrutiny, or the lack of, we heard from the Law Society of Scotland, which noted that committee scrutiny
“can sometimes seem a little perfunctory.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 21 May 2024; c 54, 56.]
That may well win an understatement of the year award, given the large workload of all our committees.
Fourthly, on cost, the estimated cost for 2024-25 is certainly above £15 million, and is heading towards £16 million, I think. We do not have all the costs for any of the new commissioners, but it would certainly be many millions of pounds, which is on top of an already stretched budget. Ironically enough, the Finance Committee of 2006 got a lot right with its tests for the creation for future bodies, namely clarity of remit, distinction between functions, complementarity, simplicity and accessibility, shared services and accountability. Our committee reiterates some of those tests in our recommendations—and rightly so.
Fifthly, perhaps the most interesting area where consolidation may be considered is that of rights. The SHRC makes a number of comments in its briefing, principally that creating new commissions or commissioners could create significant challenges for the protection of human rights. It notes that that makes matters more complex for accessing justice and dilutes human rights—it also makes various other points. What struck me was the SHRC’s view that silos could be an issue regarding the protection of rights. I make no apology for noting that that was an issue with the Parliament’s consideration of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Balancing rights is messy and complex, but it is entirely necessary. I thought that that point came through strongly.
I will make a final few comments on the dedicated committee that is proposed. Of course it will be a cross-party committee, and rightly so, but can the minister confirm that a bit of attention will be given to the skills of the members gathered on it? If we are going to do what is an important piece of work, we want to give ourselves the best potential outcomes by getting the right people on that committee.
Meeting of the Parliament
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Michelle Thomson
The minister will note that the committee recommended that the ministerial control framework should be published. Is the Government willing to do that?
Meeting of the Parliament
First Minister’s Question Time
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Michelle Thomson
After the budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility significantly downgraded its economic growth forecasts, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that the vast majority of the national insurance tax hike will hit working people through lower pay. To what extent will the UK budget usher in the new era of growth that the Secretary of State for Scotland promised?
